


Who’s coming to you tonight?

by Kissed_by_Circe



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, Saint Nikolaus, kind of, she adopted Robb's baby, singlemom!Sansa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-08
Updated: 2018-12-08
Packaged: 2019-09-14 07:29:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16908744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kissed_by_Circe/pseuds/Kissed_by_Circe
Summary: “So you want me, me and no one else, to dress up as Nikolaus and bring wee-“ his mind scrambles as he tries to remember the boy’s name, because Arya only uses pet names for him, and he doubts that her sister named her child Woolfling, Dr Snuggles, or Baby-Bear, “wee… Ar- Artos some candy, and tell him that he’s been naughty?”Arya forces Jon to play Nikolaus for her lil nephew, and somehow forgets to mention that singlemom!Sansa is really really hot 😂





	Who’s coming to you tonight?

**Author's Note:**

> Saint Nikolaus was two days ago!!! 🤗 And that means that I won’t have to listen to my boss asking every. single. fucking. patient. who’s coming to them, Nikolaus🎅 or Krampus 🐻 for the next ten months 😊

“Are you free tomorrow night, Snow?”

 

Jon looks up from the report he is filling – a sweet old lady whose purse had been stolen, and hopefully his last client today – and frowns at his partner with his eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Um, I think so… why?” “Because I kinda promised my sis that I’d get someone to surprise my nephew as Nikolaus. I originally thought about putting Gendry in a costume, but our wolf cub knows him, and he’d recognise him immediately, so…”

 

And then she is looking at him with hope and a silent flea in her big dark eyes, a lot like a little puppy, and he has to remind himself that this fairy of a girl could easily knock someone out without a single strand of hair falling out of her tight fishbone plaits. “I’ll even do your paperwork for you for, say, two weeks? Three? please.”

 

“So you want me, _me_ and no one else, to dress up as Nikolaus and bring wee-“ his mind scrambles as he tries to remember the boy’s name, because Arya only uses pet names for him, and he doubts that her sister named her child Woolfling, Dr Snuggles, or Baby-Bear, “wee… Ar- Artos some candy, and tell him that he’s been naughty?”

 

“Yes, exactly. That’d be nice.”, is all she says while leaning back in her chair contently as if the whole thing was perfectly planned now – as if he’s already said yes, as if he knows where he will get a fucking costume and what he has to tell Artos and what exactly he has to _do_ , and he tells her as much, but she just waves her hand dismissingly. “Chill, dude, that’s going to be super easy. Sugar plum organising the whole thing, she even invented some of his friends and their moms over for a play-date kind of thing for the kids and a wine orgy for the moms.”

 

“This sounds worse and worse the more you talk about it. Can’t you bribe Hot Pie into playing Nikolaus for that party?” “I already tried that, _dumbass_ , put Hot Pie’s addicted to food, and too fat for his costume. _But_ he promised to lend it to you, so that you can be Nikolaus. And _maybe_ there’s even a milf you can seduce. Women love it when guys are good with kids. Not that I’d know, but maybe it’s different with mothers.” She shrugs and takes a sip of her coffee.

 

“But you’d really do me a great favour. I won’t ever know how to repay you. And this coffee is shit.” The paper cup lands in the bin under her desk with a wet splash, and Jon sighs, before turning back to his screen and the report he was working on, but she’s not finished yet. “You’d be out of your apartment. Around some loud, and probably annoying kids and forty-something divorcees that are desperately trying to get laid by you, but you wouldn’t be alone.”

 

He thinks of his apartment, so empty and cold without the fluffy cushions on the couch and the stuffed animals on the floor and the books everywhere, the quiet darkness that creps down the now naked walls and under his skin. Maybe spending Saint Nikolaus’ day with Arya and her nephew and annoying children won’t be so bad after all.

 

* * *

 

“Thank you very much.”

 

“Such a polite little boy, are you not?”, the elderly woman next to them tells Artos and looks at him with a gentle smile as he munches on the ham slice the butcher has given him only moments before, and he nods and answers seriously. “I always try to be. Mummy says that it’s important to always be nice to people.”

 

“Yes, it’s very important indeed. If you’re not polite and do everything your parents tell you, then Nikolaus will bring Krampus with him, and he’ll put you in a sack and beat you with rods.” Her smile is still wide, but there’s something glinting in her eyes – the dark twinkle of an adult that enjoys telling children horror stories and then yell ‘boo’ to scare them, of someone who laughs about a child’s fear because they don’t take them seriously – and Artos half hides behind Sansa, burying his face in her side, while the older woman tells her that those stories always make children behave.

 

Stroking his wild brown curls and pressing him closer to her, she turns to the woman with a smile so wide and bright and forced she fears it might fall of her lips and tells her cheerily, “Oh, didn’t you know? Krampus doesn’t exist. Some people that like frightening children invented him”, and she laughs, her voice ringing in her own ears, “isn’t if funny that some people enjoy tormenting and traumatising children so much that they came up with something like that?

 

Two chicken breasts, please, and thank you for the ham.” The smile she gives the butcher is so bright and radiant that he starts stuttering, and she chats with him while he wraps the meat, pointedly ignoring the old shroud next to her and telling Artos to go and get one, _exactly one_ , bag of gummy bears from the candy shelf. When she leaves the meat counter, she tells the old woman, still politely and sweet, “ _Thank you_ for your advice, but I think I know how to raise _my_ son.”

 

She grits her teeth for the rest of their shopping trip – a short discussion over candy, a longer over muesli, a long and tiring search for the best apples and berries available – and she’s still fuming when they’re sitting on the tram and Artos, who’s been even quieter than usual, asks her if the old lady was right about Krampus.

 

“Oh, no, darling. You know what I told you about those horror stories?” His face crunches in adorable concentration that makes her heart melt. “Um, _yes_. That’s what some people say to make their children stay quiet.” “Exactly. And I’m never telling you stories like that because it’s not nice to frighten others.” He nods, reassured and calmer now, and then he tells her what his friends said about Nikolaus, and Krampus, and, most importantly, the kinds of candy they get.

 

* * *

 

“So here’s the book, the costume, the script, and no, don’t ask me why she wrote that down, I don’t know, either, and the address. Please be on time, she _hates_ tardiness. The bags with the candy are in my car. There’s going to be seven children and five other parents, and, according to Sansa, one of them…”

 

Tuning out Arya’s rambling, he digs into the bag she’s given him, and pulls out the costume – a scratchy beard, mitre and a Sheppard’s crook, a cloak of red velvet – and starts flipping through the heavy gilded book, reading the text and the post-it notes Sansa supplied for him. Written in dark purple ink and curvy, jet legible letters, are the good and bad things every kid did, what to tell them and _how_ to say it.

 

“… so apparently Myriame is allergic to nuts, but her sister gets a chocolate Nikolaus with nut splitters in the chocolate, so Sans got some almond nougat candy for Myriame to make sure she doesn’t feel like she’s being treated unfairly. And… you’re not listening to me, are ya?” “No, not really.”, he shakes his head, his gaze still glued to the sharp lines of Sansa’s curly writing.

 

* * *

 

“I know that you’re not the real Nikolaus.”, Artos tells him in a confident whisper while the other children are busy rummaging through their bags, and Jon looks at him with wide eyes, unsure of what to do. “Because I’m not stupid”, he scoffs, and inspects the tangerine he’s holding, as if Jon wasn’t even there, “your costume’s not that good, and your beard isn’t real, and I saw a picture of you on Auntie Arya’s phone.”

 

“Okay.” Jon sighs, and hopes that that little boy won’t expose the whole scheme. “I’m your auntie’s partner, like a colleague, and I’m not the real Nikolaus. Are you going to tell the others?” “ _Tz_ , no. That’d make mummy unhappy, and I don’t want her to be unhappy. Maybe you could come back later and bring her a bag, too? I can pack one, with lemons.”

 

Jon almost laughs, and can’t help but grin. “Lemons? She likes lemons more than tangerines?” The little boy nods, mumbling something about lemon cakes and _‘the positive effect of the colour yellow on people’s mental health’_ that he certainly doesn’t understand while fighting with the tangerine, and Jon risks another glance at Sansa, who’s the most gorgeous woman and the best mother he’s ever seen.

 

“Lemons. Okay.” They shake hands like they just made a deal, and then Jon helps Artos peel that tangerine.

 

* * *

 

It’s almost 11 when she’s brought Artos to bed, cleaned up the kitchen where the parents had wine and cheese while the children ransacked the living area and nursery, tidied beforementioned living room and nursery, and she peels of her dress and heels and slumps down on the couch with a glass of wine – not the first today – and groans when the door bell rings.

 

Rickon sticks his head through the door of his room, and she glares at him, a you-were-supposed-to-turn-of-the-lights-an-hour-ago glare, and walks over to the intercom. “Hey, this is Jon- um, Nikolaus. I was Nikolaus, no- I mean- I’m Arya’s partner, Jon Snow-“ She doesn’t wait for him to finish his rambling and buzzes him in.

 

He’s lost his mitre, the crook, the white beard, and she has to admit that he’s even handsomer in a leather jacket with a dark beanie on his inky curls and some stumble on his jaw – it’s a shame that it had been hidden under his fake beard – and her knees go weak. “Um, I brought a lot of candy for the children and almost broke my back carrying all that stuff up the stairs, but I didn’t get you anything. Like, you organised everything perfectly, and didn’t even get a chocolate Nikolaus, so, here…”

 

He holds a bag filled with lemons out to her.

 

* * *

 

“I got Sansa a Nikolaus” Arya smirks at their coworkers, “but not a chocolate one.” Everyone laughs, including her, until Jon walks over to her desk and drops at least three dozen files on it. “You owe me, Stark, you said so yourself. So you’re going to do _all_ of my reports. I’m, um, _busy_ , tonight. Anyone know a family friendly restaurant? I’m having dinner with a _gorgeous_ _lady_ and her son.”


End file.
